My mistake was to express how I lost patience with Jacob Zuma’s tendency to talk about bread when he is with bakers, meat when he is with butchers and pies when he is with both.
My friend — a proud, urban Zulu man, who has tendencies to walk around topless in Mofolo South, Soweto (apparently that is a very normal Zulu thing to do) — thought he had seen through me. He accused me of hating Msholozi, whom he refers to as insizwa (a man with youthful zeal) because of his virility.
For a moment I thought of defending myself and mouthing wishy-washy things about “not necessarily disliking the guy, but …”
Then it occurred to me: What if I don’t like him? So what? He will not be the only person or thing I dislike. I don’t like Mandoza, cooked cabbage or Kaizer Chiefs. Why should it be a measure of my ubuntu credentials whether I dislike one politician or fancy another?
Zuma is not some abandoned baby who we would be treating heartlessly if we did not warm to him. He is an adult politician who has views on things from homosexuality to polygamy.
Like everyone else, I am entitled to agree or disagree with him and, if his thoughts offend me sufficiently, I can dislike him to the proportional extent.
Disliking a politician is often confused with liking his or her main rival. Again I ask, as the delegates at the Polokwane conference so melodically put it: Yindaba kabani? (Whose business is it?) What if I do indeed like Msholozi’s rival? If you interpret this to be a “confession”, that I indeed do like the chap who has made smoking a pipe fashionable, be my guest.
Many people love Msholozi. Some love him enough to marry him and have his babies. Surely his life will not change too dramatically if he were to find out that I don’t love him?
You too, dear reader, are entitled to dislike me. It is OK. Really. You wouldn’t be the first. You should see some of the mail I get.
I hope that my wife, children and relatives love me. I can live with the tolerance and acceptance of my friends, beyond that, I would be asking too much.
I don’t feed the hungry or clothe the naked, I am just a regular guy, who writes things in newspapers.
When one stops desiring to be loved, will it follow one should acknowledge that not liking the guy does not necessarily translate to disrespecting his office? Even if one hopes that a particular individual will not make it to that office.
There is never a justification to distort or manipulate facts about a person you don’t like. But there should never be an obligation to be endeared towards him or her.
Is it asking too much to say that people in the media should not have preferences? I would argue it is best that we nail our colours to the mast. In so doing, eliminate “scoops” that some intrepid souls might think they have when they “discover” that you support one view (or politician) and not the other.
Just as being sports editor does not necessarily mean that I should stop supporting Orlando Pirates, so too, writing columns that sometimes say things about political figures should not mean I see all political cats as grey at night.
As a Catholic, I am often appalled by the extent this paper will go towards what I think is demonising the church.
But as good editors — like the woman who calls the shots here often reminds us — there is a difference between being objective and being balanced. Forget about being impartial.
I am not objective or impartial in how I interpret what is written about the Holy Father.
I try to be balanced in my writing and editing. When I fail in that regard, it is for you to say so and substantiate your argument.
Newspapers and those who staff them should also pierce the veil of aloofness. We are not judges, thankfully. If you are indifferent to how those who hold power use or abuse it and are simply there to “report” but not to contextualise, then you belong at the post office and not the newsroom.
The battle for ideas is on. A hundred flowers bloom before our eyes. Some among us will prefer daffodils and others roses. We owe nobody an explanation for that, and we certainly don’t have to like the gardener, no matter how many thousands vote for him in some university town.